


Just Like Heaven

by desla_be



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: 80s AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Birthday Cake, British Slang, Clubbing, F/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, One Shot, Rock and Roll, Sandor is grumpy and sweet and dumb, Tattoos, serious pining, when i tell you these two are IDIOTS IN LOVE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29127039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desla_be/pseuds/desla_be
Summary: Sandor’s having an absolutely shit birthday when he gets a call from Sansa to go over immediately to her house. He’s in for quite the night.80s British au featuring birthday cake, stick-and-poke tattoos, neon signs andThe Cure. Underage drinking and dysfunctional romance.
Relationships: Sandor Clegane & Sansa Stark, Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 43





	Just Like Heaven

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Glitter Disco Hot Mess](https://archiveofourown.org/works/539852) by [acciosalmon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acciosalmon/pseuds/acciosalmon). 



> This was inspired by an amazing fic that I read by @acciosalmon, and immediately upon completion of reading it I knew I wanted to follow the prompt sansan style. As someone who is not British and who was not around in the 80s, I had to do a lot of research for this fic, and I’m SO sorry if I’ve misused any slang or there are historical inaccuracies— I tried my best!!! I also wrote this in an attempt at British English just for fun, so, apologies if there are mistakes in that regard as well. 
> 
> *TWs: hostile household environment and implied child abuse, mention of trauma.
> 
> *CW: unhygienic stick-and-poke administration location, process, aftercare (germaphobes beware) including small doses of needle and blood imagery.

It was bad enough that his excuse of a family didn’t give a flying fuck that it was his birthday, now his dad was trying to _talk_ to him to top it all off. Three hundred and sixty-five days in the year and this was the one he just wanted to be left alone. 

Apparently that was too much to ask. 

“SANDOR!” shouted his dad for the third time. 

Sandor stared up at the ceiling. _Fucking brilliant._

“SANDOR, get your arse down here NOW! Someone’s on the fucking line.”

Sandor let out a sigh, drawing his trousers up and fastening the brassy buckle in place again. He drifted off the bed, the sweet spot in the floorboards creaking as his foot pressed onto it, and left the room, shutting the door behind him. 

Two steps into the hallway, he saw Gregor. There was an oafish smile on his face that made Sandor’s stomach churn. 

“Girlfriend’s on the phone.” 

_Sansa_ , he thought. _Of course it was Sansa_. “She’s not my girlfriend,” he said, heading for the stairs.

Gregor stopped, grabbing Sandor’s shoulder and glancing at his crotch. “Your fly’s down,” he said. “Were you having a fucking toss in there? Thinking of her, weren’t you? Soiling more socks?” 

Sandor reached down with a clammy hand and pulled the zipper back up, jerking away from his brother’s grip. “Fuck off.” 

A swift motion passed before his eyes and then he was pinned against the wall by his chest faster than he could _blink_ , the wind nearly knocked from him at Gregor’s force. 

“Want to say it again?” asked Gregor. “Go on, give it another go.”

He could hear his own blood pumping in his body; his head began to pound. The truth was, Sandor didn’t want to say it again. The last time he’d _said it again_ he’d gotten a raging fucking shiner on the left eye (it looked absolutely _ravishing_ next to the mountain of scar tissue). But now he could feel the words perched in his throat, sitting atop his tongue, his half-baked ego just waiting to test Gregor’s fury. 

The longer he stared at Gregor’s face, the more the temptation grew but in the end, Sandor didn’t dare. This was an obstacle between him taking Sansa’s call— between him finally getting back to his bed. An obstacle, nothing more. Not worth getting decked over. 

“Let me go,” Sandor panted, fists clenched at his sides, kept from moving a centimetre by his brother’s arm. 

“That’s what I thought,” said Gregor, his ugly face less than half a foot from Sandor’s. He let his arm loosen, drawing back and giving Sandor enough space to slip out from between him and the wall, and then for good measure he knocked his knee hard into Sandor’s legs, missing the whole of his groin by a hair— but it didn’t matter. The angle got him regardless and knocked him completely off center. 

Gregor let him fall back, walking away as he doubled over onto the floor, unmoved as Sandor cried out, placing his hands between his legs as an electrifying pain reverberated between his thighs. 

“SANDOR! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING UP THERE!” his dad called for him again from downstairs, impossibly louder— or was that the hard thrumming in his ears? “DIDN’T YOU FUCKING HEAR ME? SOMEONE’S ON THE LINE. If you’re not down here in a MINUTE, I’m FUCKING HANGING UP.”

Sandor groaned again, taking a final moment before releasing his hands from his crotch and fighting a tremble as he helped himself off of the floor. _Another fucking birthday,_ he thought, eyes beginning to sting. He shook it off as best as he could, bare feet grazing against the ragged polypropylene carpet as he struggled downstairs. 

The telly was on in the living room, a football game between his dad’s favorite team and a local. And he was waiting in the kitchen, holding the phone for Sandor. Holding the phone for him instead of letting it ring through might’ve been the nicest thing his dad had ever done for him for his birthday. 

Sandor pushed into the kitchen, speeding up to grab the phone. 

One glance at his dad’s face told him that he was completely fucking wound up. His frown deepened when he saw Sandor, eyes growing even colder somehow. 

Sandor took the phone, pressing it to his ear quickly so as to deter his dad from making a scene. He thought his dad would at least have the wits to not beat him while other people could’ve been listening.

He was wrong. 

His dad shoved him by the back, pushing him hard into the wall so that his chest knocked against the surface, but not caring to keep him pinned as Gregor had. “Took your sweet time, did you? Next time she calls, I’m not fucking waiting for you to come down.” He went on his way back to the sofa. 

“Hello?” Sandor breathed into the receiver, twirling with the telephone cord in his fingers. 

“Sandor— I didn’t mean to cause a fuss! I really didn’t.” It was Sansa, which wasn’t even _relatively_ surprising. “By the way, this is Sansa.” 

Her voice made his heart ache, but he was too busy aching somewhere else after his altercation with Gregor to pay much attention to the sweetness, or even to laugh at her, which he was rather fond of. “What is it?” 

“You’ve got to come over right now!” she said. 

Sandor sighed, rubbing his forehead. “And why’s that?” 

“Well…” said Sansa, “I can’t tell you over the phone, exactly. You’ve just got to come over. As soon as possible.” 

He just wanted to go back to his bedroom and finish his fucking _wank_ , that was all. “Sansa,” he mumbled, “I—”

“I’ll see you when you get here.” She hung up and the line went dead. 

Sandor shoved the phone back onto the wall, cursing as he turned to head back upstairs. His dad said nothing when he walked by. For fuck’s sake, that conversation with her had been _thirty seconds!—_ a tenth of the time it had fucking taken to get down there in the first place. 

And now he had to go over. 

Seeing her wasn’t the issue _obviously_ ; it was everything else. It was cold and rainy and she didn’t live anywhere close to him besides; they only had one car and his dad would’ve had a fucking _aneurism_ if Sandor had suggested borrowing it. 

His clothes were absolutely rank; he needed to change, especially if he was going to be seeing Sansa. Sandor wondered what the big crisis was tonight that she was asking him to go over. Probably that another chap had asked her out or something stupid like that. It was always about a fair-haired chap asking her out. Thankfully for him, she’d never expressed interest in any of them, except the occasional remark about them looking nice, which was debatably just as bad for him to hear. Usually she just wanted him to make them leave her own, which he didn’t mind at all. 

_Nicely_ , she would say. _Tell them nicely_. Sandor was never nice about it. 

He rummaged in his drawers, pulling out a pair of overlarge brown corduroys and bringing them to his nose to make sure they weren’t smelling offensive. _Fine._ Sandor dropped his trousers and pulled the new ones on. They were secondhand, and only his because Gregor had grown out of them. _Fat fucking wanker_. 

His shirt smelled like garbage as well, and he pulled it over his head and chucked it across the room. There was a baggy white long sleeve crumpled in the second drawer, and it didn’t smell so bad so he pulled that over himself, adding an even larger black _Iron Maiden_ t-shirt overtop that he’d also inherited from Gregor. 

Sandor stepped into a pair of peeling black trainers, one of the laces a tattered white and the other neon pink, which he’d swapped with Sansa a few months ago because she’d wanted to and he would’ve gone to school in his birthday suit to see a smile on her face. 

He stuffed a few emergency bills into his pocket and left. His dad didn’t bother to say goodbye as Sandor walked out. 

Raining, big surprise there. The sun was completely gone, too. He tried to keep under building ledges as he roamed the wet streets, hands stuffed in his pockets as cold air brushed against his chest and pushed his hair behind his ear. 

He stopped briefly at a corner for a packet of ready salted crisps and something for her as well, the bloke behind the counter not paying him much more mind than his own family had. 

The rain fell onto Sandor’s hair, dripping off into the bag of crisps as he ate them, even going so far as to slosh around in the torn soles of his shoes and soak his socks through. He wished his house was nicer, so that she could’ve come over instead. It was _his_ fucking birthday after all, but he didn’t dare let her over his house. Not with his dad and Gregor around, and his dad never left, the old bum. 

Sansa’s house came into view, halfway up the road. 

Sandor tipped his head back, emptying the last of the crisps in before shoving the empty bag into one of her neighbour’s letterboxes and pulling the flag up. He scooped up a handful of pebbles from the corner of the street, grabbing one by one and throwing them at the cars on the curb, at a squirrel in the tree, in the direction of other houses as he neared, but never Sansa’s. He’d thrown pebbles onto her drive once before when they’d been walking back to her flat and she’d gotten pretty bothered about it, so he kept from doing it again. 

Sandor ran out of pebbles before getting there anyway. 

He yanked a flower from the ground, something she also wouldn’t have liked but he thought it was excusable since the flower was for her anyway, wasn’t it? His eyes widens when the whole pile of roots came up with it and dirt crumbled all over the place. 

“Fuck,” he mumbled, ripping the stem again and rubbing the dirt onto his trousers. He shoved the flower into his pocket. 

Sandor walked around the side of the property, shoes squishing into the wet grass as he made his way to the outside of her bedroom. He wasn’t in a mood to chat with her parents, and they probably wouldn’t have let him in anyway. 

Her curtains were drawn and he could hear music coming through her cracked window— she was listening to _Madonna_. Sandor rolled his eyes. 

He was careful to stay out of view, his back pressed against the siding of her flat, peering over his shoulder to see where she was. He tapped his fist against the glass, loud enough for her to notice, hopefully not the same for the rest of her household.

The music stopped. Silence for a long moment, and then, “Sandor…?” 

He didn’t respond. Remaining out of view, he raised his fist to the side of her window and rapped on it slowly. 

“Sandor… if that’s you, then stop it, you’re scaring me!” 

_God, she was a fucking snore._ ”Well don’t shit yourself already,” he sighed and stepped up onto her mum’s gardening box, and allowed himself into view. “Two raps on your window and you’ve already got the fucking jitters, is that it?” 

“You know I hate it when you do that! For all I know you could’ve been a murderer!” Sansa came forward, pulling the window up all the way, and he placed his hands on the inside of the frame and hopped through it. “How about using the front door next time?” 

“Your parents don’t like me. It’s better for everyone this way.” 

She snickered. “It’s not better for _them_ — you’re still here, they just don’t know it. It’s actually quite worse. Maybe they’d like you more if you stopped coming into the flat through my window, yeah?” 

Sandor closed the window behind him, dropping his sodden shoes in front of it. “So what is it then? Another bloke asked you to go with him?” 

“No,” she said, going red in the cheeks. “No. Are you that thick? Surely you didn’t think I’d forgotten to plan something for your birthday—” 

“You’re joking, Sansa— my _birthday?_ ” Obviously, yes, he had considered that was the reason she wanted him over, he’d just hoped it wasn’t. If it was something going on in her life and she needed him over, it would’ve been worth it, but for him? He didn’t want any sort of birthday party. “You know it was pouring when I set out? _Brass_ fucking _monkeys_ out there.” 

“Oh c’mon, don’t act like you don’t love this shit weather.” 

It was always bizarre to hear her use profanity, but he never said anything. It was her choice what words she wanted to use, and it’s not like his tongue was any cleaner. Still, he couldn’t help but think that it was different for her than it was for him; he swore because he had _actual_ things to be upset about, and from the time he spent with her— what he’d seen of her life— she wasn’t even living in the same dimension. 

“Got you a sweet,” he said, pulling a king-sized Toblerone out of his trouser pocket and chucking it at her. His forefinger passed over the flower in his pocket but he left it there. 

She barely caught the candy. “Thanks.” 

Sandor climbed onto her bed, laying on his belly with his feet near her pillows. “Could you put on something that isn’t _this?_ ” 

He put his face in his hands, watching as she changed the record. She was wearing wide-leg jeans and an oversized purple sweater that tucked into her waist, neon pink anklets on each of her feet. 

There was a moment of static, and then the music started playing. _Blondie_ , Sandor groaned. 

“This isn’t what I had in mind,” he complained. 

Sansa didn’t respond. She walked across the room to her desk, undoing some sort of box as she teetered on her feet to the song. “ _Love is so confusing, there’s no peace of mind_ … Sandor, come over here.” 

“No.” 

“Sandor, come over here or I’ll throw cake at your face and then you’ll have something to be upset about.” 

_Cake._ He rolled over onto his back, leaning his head off the bed and looking over at her. “You don’t think I have anything else to be upset about?” 

Sansa shot him a sympathetic glance over her shoulder. “That bad, huh?” 

“Worse,” he grumbled, huffing as he sat up. “Greg nearly gave me a bloody shiner like last month, and my dad...” Sandor stopped, thinking of his dad and growing colder all of the sudden. Earlier in the day, his dad had given him an old rubber from his wallet— which he was pretty sure had been a jest meant to offend him— and a fag that was already half fucking gone; he’d thrown the crumpled fag away immediately, bringing the rubber to his bedroom for a curious inspection, but throwing it away shortly after. She didn’t need to know about it, he didn’t think. “You know, it’s nothing,” Sandor waved. 

Sansa walked over, round fluffy cake on a plate in her arms, setting it down on the bed before flopping down next to him. 

There were gummy bears on toothpicks instead of candles. Sandor’s eyes scanned across them— seventeen, geometrically placed. And in the middle, _Happy 17th!_

“You made this?” Sandor asked, already knowing the answer. She’d made him a cake last year, too— every year since they were twelve, actually. When he turned twelve she’d put real candles in the center and she’d lit them, and he’d been so nervous that he started to cry, so every year since they’d been some abstract creation that only vaguely resembled real candles.

It took a lot of self-control not to swipe the icing off of the edge, but he didn’t want to ruin it for her, or for himself. It wasn’t everyday that people were making him birthday cakes from scratch and he wanted to look at this one for a moment before it wasn’t perfect anymore. Truthfully it was his favourite present each year, though since he didn’t get any presents anyway, he supposed that wasn’t a great feat on her part. 

“Mhm,” she hummed, pulling two forks out of her back pocket and handing one to him. 

“Carrot?” he _loved_ carrot cake; she knew that. 

“Yes.” 

Sandor stared at it for a long moment, thinking about where he could learn how to make a cake for her birthday, coming up in a few months, without it being too _on the nose_. Obviously if he asked her to teach him, she’d be onto him in a heartbeat. But she was who he wanted to teach him, ever patient with her demonstrations. 

“Well go on then,” said Sansa. “Try it.”

He pulled off a few of the gummy bears and nibbled them away, laying the toothpicks on her comforter and jabbing his fork into the edge, pulling off a clump of flaky brown cake and thick white icing. 

Sandor tipped his head back after the first bite, looking over at her sideways with his fork lodged in his mouth. 

“Is it… good?” 

He nodded, eyes wide, completely still. 

“Well…” Sansa chuckled, “alright then.” She dug her fork in after him and they ate cake on her bed, moving only when the record needed to be changed. 

They got halfway through her round cake before their stomachs hurt too much from the icing to continue. 

Sansa got off the bed, placing the platter on her nightstand. “There’s something else to your birthday present, and we’ve gotta go or we’ll miss it.”

“Oh god,” he rubbed his face, “what else’ve you planned?” 

She walked to her wardrobe, opening it up and pulling out a hook with a folded pair of lime green trousers and a bunch of black fabric. 

“We’re going to The Flying Goose.” 

Sandor shot up. “The _pub?_ Are you _barking_ fucking _mad?_ ” 

“No one will say anything. You look of age—”

“And you don’t look a day over fifteen,” he cut in.

Sansa gave him a look. “Oh, give it a rest, you’re only four months older than me. Besides, no bartender is going to risk talking to you long enough to try kicking us out.” 

“But they’ll risk talking to you,” he touched his temples, already dreading the possibilities of her being chatted up by the bartenders, and everyone else with eyes. 

“That’s why I won’t be leaving your side,” she said. “Come on, it’ll be fun, I promise.” 

Sandor’s mind swam for potential excuses. “But your parents—”

“My parents think I’m staying at Jeyne’s for the night. And you came in through the window anyway, so they don’t even know you’re here.” 

No. This was enough. “Sansa,” he stood up, “I don’t want to go to a fucking _pub_. I came over here because I thought that you needed something from me, and your cake was very good, but if there’s nothing else, my day was shit and I just want to lay down.” He wanted to wank, was what he wanted; his balls were bluer than fucking _berries_ by now. 

Sansa hung her clothes over the chair at her desk, her face falling. “Sandor,” she said, pleading, “I wanted to do this with you because I thought it would be fun… I just wanted you to have a good birthday,” by the wounded look on her face, anyone would’ve thought she’d just gotten her heart broken. Sandor rolled his eyes. “If you don’t want to go, then it’s alright, but I thought you’d have a much better time out with me than at home with your dad and Greg.” 

He glared at her. She had a point— he would definitely have a better time being with her than being across the hall from his dad and Gregor— but it was annoying that she _knew_ she had a point. 

“Fine,” he grumbled, “fucking whatever. We’ll go to the bar— but you’re buying me some chips for the trouble, and if someone’s onto us I’m not lying for you.” That was a bloody fucking bluff and he knew it— he’d lie for her any day of the week. He hoped she didn’t know that. His dad said that if girls knew you fancied them, they’d take advantage of you, but everything his dad said was total shit, so that tidbit of advice must’ve been, too. Still, he couldn’t help wonder if Sansa knew how much he fancied her. 

“Brilliant,” she said. The smile returned to her face and it _almost_ made him content with his decision. She gave him a wave of her hand, “Turn around then.” 

Sandor sighed, sitting back down on the bed and facing the headboard. He listened for the soft rustles of fabric that meant she was removing her clothes. When the curtains by her bedside window were drawn he could see her reflection easily in the glass, but the first time he’d realised that was the last time he looked. That wasn’t to say that it didn’t take effort not to peek at her. He’d thought it was strange that she changed with him there at all but if he’d made a thing of it, she’d probably stop doing it, and while he wasn’t making any effort to look at her, there was still something intimate enough about it to make his insides flutter.

Still, there was an aftertaste that soured it for him. She put _unbelievable_ stock into the gentlemanliness of blokes— the sort of ideas reflected in the books she’d read as a child, saccharine courtship and chivalric, honourable men and _I’ll love you until the end of time_ bullshit. So naively trusting, like she believed that no one would ever dream of getting into her knickers. Sandor wouldn’t have dared to even think of _thinking_ of forcing himself on her, but he thought it was pretty stupid of her taking off her clothes with him twelve feet away, him twice her size— and he hoped she wasn’t doing that around anyone else. He didn’t understand that kind of trust at all. 

“Decent,” she said, and he turned around again. 

Sansa studied herself in a full mirror on the wall. She flipped her hair over an oversized cream jumper that cut off at her hips; it said _Bad Lemon_ in hard yellow print. Skinny neon green trousers were underneath that, and she wore the shoes with the laces they’d swapped (hers were a lot cleaner than his).

“Ready then?” he asked. 

“Not quite. I have something for you first. An accessory!” 

_Fucking bugger me._

She rummaged in her wardrobe drawers for a few moments before pulling out a scrap of fabric and crossing the room to present it to him. 

“You’re fucking joking,” he said. A tie. A _bright yellow_ fucking _tie_. “No way in hell I’m wearing that leash.” 

“It’s not a _leash_ , Sandor, it’s a _tie_. Come here,” she reached out for him and he stepped back, putting his hands out in warning.

“Keep away from me.” 

She tilted her head at him and her eyes dimmed, exasperated. “Oh come off it, don’t go throwing a wobbly about a _necktie_.” 

“I’m not putting that on.”

“Too posh for it, are we?” Sansa twirled the yellow tie in her fingers. “Above the colour yellow now? When did you get so _stuck_ _up_ the—”

“Fine! Fucking— Just bag it, will you?” he groaned, letting out a sigh. “Hand it over then, you bloody ginger.” 

She looked far too chuffed when she placed the ugly yellow scrap in his hands. And she knew _just_ how to get to him— that was the worst part, God, she knew all of it! Maybe his dad had been onto something after all. 

Sandor threw the yellow scrap around his neck, tying it in a loose-hanging knot that gave him plenty of room in the throat area. It was probably her older brother’s; he couldn’t fathom this being part of her dad’s work apparel. 

“It’s brilliant!” she beamed, clapping her hands like a fucking goonie. “One more thing.” 

There was a mischievous gleam in her eye when she left to collect whatever it was going to be this time, sifting through her desk drawer before tucking something behind her back. 

“Well what the hell is it?” he asked, crossing his arms. 

She pursed her lips, showing her hands over to reveal… a baseball cap. 

“You’re taking the piss now,” he scoffed. 

“It’s part of the look! It really is! Won’t you wear it, please?” 

Sandor studied her face. It was the eyes, he realised— it was the fucking eyes that made him weak; too starry, too soft, too much love. He looked away. 

“Yeah whatever,” he acquiesced, “give it here.” What fucking _look_ was she going for exactly, that involved a necktie _and_ a baseball cap? _I’m headed off to join the circus?_

Sansa thrust the baseball cap into his hands. It was crimson and it had _Wham!_ printed across the front. “Where’d you get this?” 

“Stole it from Robb’s bedroom, along with the tie. I thought it’d look nice on you. And it does.”

“Come off it,” he mumbled, but his heart ached for her to say it again— to argue with him that he did look good.

She didn’t. He wondered if that was his fault, that perhaps he pushed her too much or she was tired of him always snapping. Or maybe she just hadn’t really meant it in the first place, and to say it a second time would’ve been taking the joke too far. 

“Let’s see the hat then.” 

“Right,” Sandor muttered. At least it wasn’t yellow, he thought, pushing it over the top of his head. If he was lucky, it might make his scars a bit further out of frame. “How is it?” 

“It’s good,” she smiled, and there was even a little redness to her cheeks, “it’s really good. Could you put it backwards?” 

He was too stricken by her compliment to complain about adjusting the orientation, so he did it without thought, turning the hat around and letting the brim lean towards his back. 

“I like it a lot,” said Sansa. She made him lean down a moment so she could pull some of his hair out and frame it to her liking. He certainly didn’t mind the touch, but it was a bit hard to be comfortable with her so close to his burns. 

Her nimble fingers slipped into the black locks that had gotten wet in the rain, tucking them gently behind his ear on one side and untangling the hair at the other. He noticed that she was trying to uncover his burns, exposure that _terrified_ him, but he was too nervous to move already so he resigned himself and simply let her have her way. 

God, it was electrifying to be touched by her— a _life-changing_ type of sensation— the type of dopamine they didn’t sell at the corner shop for anything that he could afford, or would’ve engaged in regardless. It would’ve been just like _heaven_ to know that she enjoyed this delicate intimacy just as much— or even that she was enjoying it a _little_ — but her features gave nothing away. 

Her eyes transfixed on him in concentration and he could hear her breathing carefully through parted lips. 

“There we go,” she said as she finished, her voice a little husky, nearly a rasp but elegant as ever. 

It was like a sort of death when she took her hands back, in the sense that the fluttering in his body, the light dance on his skin— fell away entirely; died and disintegrated, saved for later. 

When she let him loose, Sandor stepped in front of her mirror to get a look at himself. The necktie sat over his _Iron Maiden_ shirt, skewing the letters and sticking out like a horribly sore, _yellow_ thumb. The baseball cap looked alright but he still felt like a fool; he _never_ wore hats. Perhaps he should’ve. Did she prefer blokes to wear hats? Maybe they weren’t such a hassle after all. Couldn’t have been very expensive, either... could they?

The white long sleeve hung just a bit lower than the t-shirt overtop, and it fell a bit baggy around his arms. The socks on his feet were stained by the rain, and they left damp spots on her hardwoods.

“Okay,” began Sansa, rehearsing the game plan with him, but they’d snuck out together so many times that the ‘game plan’ was nearly etched into his mind at this point. “I’m going to go say goodbye to my parents and I’ll leave through the front door, and I’ll meet you at the edge of the lot.”

“Right,” he agreed, shoving his feet back into the still-wet trainers and letting himself through her window. She closed it after he was out, and he walked through the lawn, waiting for her behind her dad’s auto. 

Sandor watched the sky as he waited, black and blue and purple with neon industrialism. He heard the front door open and close and in a few moments she was by his side. 

“So we’ll take a turn at the end of the street and—”

“I know where The Flying Goose is, you redhead twat,” said Sandor. “You know my dad’s a regular.”

“Don’t bite _my_ head off, I was just making sure you knew where we were going. Besides, your dad is a regular at all of the pubs in the city.” 

“No shit. And I know where all of them are.” 

“Right.” 

The yellow tie bobbed on his stomach as he walked and he wondered how stupid he looked. Saying yes to her had become an automatic response; it had become _instinctual_ for him, since quite early on in their friendship, frankly, to give her what she wanted. His morals were already shit due to absent upbringing, so the list of things he wasn’t willing to do for her wasn’t long at all. He was _really_ fucked there. 

Sansa’s rubber soles squeaked against the wet asphalt. She hugged herself for a moment, letting out a long breath. “Cold out tonight, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he mimicked, “fucking freezing out— just like I said when I arrived at your flat.” He wished one of her surprises for him had been a coat. 

They crossed the street, passing under a dim orange streetlight, rainwater slipping into his worn shoes with each step. Night-birds were singing to each other in the trees. The chill seeped into his clothes, but walking with her body beside his was enough of a frenzy to keep him warm. 

Obviously it wasn’t the case for her.

Her blatant chattering and shivering got old really quickly, so, with a forced sigh, he curled his arm and put it out for her. When she took it, slipping her hand through him so that her knuckles brushed quickly against his chest through the damp shirt, his heart leapt. 

*****

The Flying Goose was one of easiest pubs in the city to get into if you were underage and wanted to be served. 

Sandor had needed to collect his dad from all over the place when he was too drunk to get himself home, a weekly occurrence at least. It should’ve been Gregor since he was the one with the drivers licence, but he always made Sandor go, unable to be bothered walking to the city center to take care of their dad. 

Sandor didn’t give a rat’s ass about taking care of his dad, either— that isn’t why he went all those times. He went because it was the only time he ever got to use his dad’s car and driving was one of the few pastimes that made him happy. It was an escape, a distraction— even if all it was, was the twenty-minute expedition to bring his dad back from the pub to their mangy shithole flat. 

They made it finally to the street corner, and the tall, narrow brick building stood in the middle. _God_ , he hoped his dad didn’t decide to come here tonight. 

“What are we coming here for again?” 

“It’s disco night!” 

“Right,” he rubbed his face. She’d unhooked her arm from his some time ago and it’d left him equally achy and cranky. 

It actually wasn’t disco night. They almost exclusively played rock here— there was even a neon sign on the front window that said _Rock ‘n’ Roll_ , had she missed that?

One of those nights when he’d gotten a call from the bartender to pick up his dad, he’d gotten stuck for nearly an hour sitting in a corner sticky with spilled ale while his old man sat chatting up women at the counter. Through all of the tarts he’d tried to get to go home with him, Sandor could only remember one and he was pretty sure their exchange had involved money. He was a piece of shit anyway; Sandor didn’t think people like that deserved to get laid. 

Sandor had spent that night at the pub watching other people dancing to _The Cure_. The DJ played every single song on _Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me_ , starting and ending with “Pictures of You”. No one even noticed him there, or they didn’t care enough to have him kicked out.

Sansa was going to walk right in through the front entrance but he drew her to the side before she could get her hand on the knob. 

“Are you that nutty?” he huffed, glaring at her. 

“Sorry?” 

“What? You really think if you just prance inside, you won’t be tossed right back out the door?” Honestly, they probably wouldn’t get tossed out the door. But what if his dad was here? Sandor didn’t want to take the chance of his dad being there— of Sansa running into him. He knew where his dad liked to sit. The two of them would have a much safer time getting through the back if his dad happened to be there. 

“Suppose you’ve got a point,” she said. 

“There’s a back entrance,” he said, pointing around the side of the building, through a dim alleyway. 

“Right,” said Sansa quietly, and he could hear the uncertainty plain in her voice. 

“Come along then,” said Sandor, wondering again why he’d agreed to this.

There was a weird feeling in his stomach as they weaselled through the dirty alley, her fingers curled into his tricep, grappling for security in _him_ — _him,_ of all people. Practising at a normal heart rate, he reached around to cover her with his arm, keeping her close under his protection. Did she like that?— being held, by him? He was too chicken-shit to ask, and it would’ve been a stupid thing to say anyway. They’d been more intimate than this before, so he wasn’t sure why this was quite so euphoric, why his adrenaline was going so much more than what was usual when they touched. Maybe it was the darkness: the anticipation of not knowing where her hands were going to go next; the hope, the ticklish curiosity of teasing the fragile boundaries of a very close friendship. The latter had happened once before: one afternoon on the rug in her bedroom when she’d pressed very carefully with him, very inquisitively, regarding interest in the activity of kissing. Mortified with nerves, he’d told her that she was absolutely mental (he was a fucking idiot), concerned that it was some sort of jest on her end and that she’d never _actually_ want to kiss him, and she hadn’t brought it up again. What he would’ve done to redo that moment. 

Sandor let out a breath, glancing quickly up. The sky looked like indigo tar now, dense and wet and sticky. 

Sansa squealed when a rat ran past them, and she shoved her body closer against his, arms clinging to his middle in a state of frenzy. A pang flew into his chest at her touch, his body entirely unprepared for the the air-tight embrace of her limbs. Nerves kept him too petrified to lean back into her, and instead he spared only one arm to make sure that she felt safe at the very least. Assuming she felt safe with him. Assuming he was meant to touch her back at all. 

“It’s here,” he breathed, voice husky as he waved to the back door beside the dumpster. It was tall, wide and chipping at the corners. This was where the staff left to drop the trash. Both of their noses curled at the sour stench that misted from the garbage bags in the post-rain dew. 

He pushed the door open and she followed in after him. 

Immediately music bounced onto their bodies and off again, into their eardrums but not back out, blaring as the beats ricocheted from wall to wall. They walked past the toilets, past the neon blue and green signs that hung on opposite sides saying _Ladies_ and _Gents_. 

There were neon signs _everywhere_ , sticking far off the walls in a way that reminded him peculiarly of the stuffed heads of a taxidermist’s study, glowing like fever dreams. Not to mention, there were people everywhere, too!— Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip; the club was completely fucking packed. 

The last Friday he’d been here hadn’t been so… _popular_. It was only half eight and the pub was absolutely littered with people. He wondered when this shithole had become such a hotspot. 

It was the fucking _Clash_ blasting on out of the DJ’s speakers— “Rock the Casbah”’s ridiculous chorus. Sandor looked to Sansa’s expression, who had thought she was going to be in for a night of disco, and tried to stifle a laugh. 

“Wait…” she said quietly, her eyes soft with confusion, “this isn’t disco…” 

“They don’t play disco here,” he told her. “They play rock.”

“Jon had said—”

“Jon was having a laugh.” 

They chose a table in the back. As soon as they got there, she, to his complete and utter horror, pulled off her cream jumper. 

There was practically _nothing_ underneath— just a little black tube top that said _babe_ in pink italics across the tits. It barely covered her midriff, and as her pale skin flashed in front of him, his breath caught, horrified. 

“Are you joking?” Sandor looked around the room, panicked. “That’s not a shirt, it’s a… it’s a fucking _brassiere!_ ”

Her cheeks went red at the mention of _brassiere_ and she bit her lip. 

It wasn’t even a fucking shirt, it was _half_ of one! He’d seen some of the slags at their school going around in clothes like that, but she wasn’t one of them. God, what the fuck was she thinking coming out in something like that? There were pedophiles all over the place and she was only sixteen!— Granted, he was only on his first day of seventeen, but he still imagined that fact to give him some authority in situations like this. He should’ve… he should’ve stopped her, made her stay home; she didn’t belong in a pub… not in that outfit! 

Not to mention that the black tube top hugged her chest too well for his own comfort. He wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to sit across from her without his trousers tenting. 

“I’m serious, Sansa, if you don’t put your jumper back on I’ll drag you out of here in a potato sack!” 

Her gentle, rosy features turned over, her mouth becoming a proper frown. “Who died and made you king then? You don’t tell me what _I_ wear.” 

Sandor glared at her, helpless, and his blood began to run hot. 

“Are you _mad?_ There are nonces all over the place, and you look like you’re going at ten quid for a shag!”

Her eyes fell dark with horror at his statement, cheeks going an impossible red. “Sandor—”

“Well what the fuck do you think your parents would say if they saw you out in that— _thing?_ ” he waved at her top in disgust. 

“My parents aren’t here, are they?” her hands wrapped into small, shaking fists. “God, and now you sound just like them,” she shook her head in contempt. “You’re not my mum, Sandor!— you’ve got no authority to tell me what I can or can’t wear! And for you to sit there and call me a _tart_ —” 

“I never said you looked like—”

“If you want to go, then fine. I’ll get home some other way and you won’t have to risk being seen with a _slag_.” 

He stood there staring at her like an idiot for a moment, eyes wide with utter bewilderment. “That’s not—” Sandor began, but she cut him off. 

She crossed her arms, furrowing her brows at him. “You said just a moment ago that I looked ten quid for a shag!”

“I didn’t call you a slag.”

Sansa didn’t say anything, but he didn’t like the way she was looking at him either. He didn’t say that about her, and if she wanted to be miffed over nothing, it was her own fault, he thought. She was completely out of line! Maybe when some drunken git tried to get handsy with her she’d come to her senses. 

Sandor’s stomach roiled at the thought. 

He understood where she was coming from, yeah. Her parents kept her on one hell of a leash— but he at least knew that they were trying to keep her from getting hurt or into trouble. No one in his life had done that for him, and she was completely taking it for granted. 

The remark about her being a cheap toss was fucked, even for him, and he _knew_ he should’ve apologised to her, but then all he could think about was the fact that she wasn’t even grateful that the people in her life were trying to look out for her. Did she know what he would’ve fucking given to be in her shoes instead: parents who wanted to know where he was going and when he was coming back, that he wasn’t going to wind up dead in an alley? Yeah maybe he’d been a little harsh and he owed her an apology for thinking that he had a vote in her style of dress, and the comment about the shag, but he thought she owed him one as well for being completely ungrateful that he was only trying to look out for her. 

He looked over at her, pouting in her chair. 

“So that’s how it’s gonna be then?” Sandor mumbled.

“Yeah.” 

“Fine.” 

“ _Fine_.” 

They sat down at the table, pulling their seats away from one another and averting their eyes. The music changed to an artist Sandor liked but he was too angry to tap his fingers along to the beat, or to risk giving her the impression that he wasn’t as upset as she was. 

Sansa sighed and began to adjust her hair. 

Sandor looked over at her. Yeah. He had to get away. Just for a few minutes. 

“I’m going to get some ale,” he said, standing up from the chair. From the corner of his eye he saw that there was a glimmer in hers at the mention of ale but he ignored it, shoving past the table and heading over to the counter. 

Sandor weaved between two barstools, waiting to be noticed by a burly chap with wiry blue hair and a shirt that was too small. 

When his eyes finally scrolled over Sandor, he didn’t show even _mild_ detection that the bloke in front of him might’ve been underage. 

“Can I get for ya?” he said.

“Lager.” 

The man nodded, reaching for a tall glass and moving across the space to fill it. He headbanged to the song, mouth open in concentration, movements a bit uncoordinated; he’d clearly been drinking along the way. 

Sandor had seen this man before when he’d been collecting his dad a few times. The bartender obviously didn’t remember him, but it was no bother. Probably better that way anyway. He stuck his hand into his pocket for a bill and passed it along the counter. 

“Alright,” said Sandor once he took hold of the glass, the surface of the cup sticky with ale that had sloshed over the edges. He took a sip as the bartender took the money from the counter, wiping the foam off his mouth with the back of his hand before waving goodbye. 

Sansa was still brooding in her seat, leaning onto the table with her chin in her hands as she watched other people dance under a plethora of neon lights with longing plain in her eyes. 

He sat down far away from her, his seat scratching against the floor as he scooted forward. When he set his glass down on the table, beer spilled over the edges.

Sansa ran her fingers through the ends of her hair idly, another on a _long_ list of habits of hers that made him curious about what she felt like and eager to find out. 

Sandor tapped the glass with his fingertips, staring at the amber liquid inside intently. Obviously she wanted some, perhaps he could use it to offer her a truce. 

She was definitely looking at his lager. It was amusing because he knew that she couldn’t stand the taste of it— she just wanted to drink. Similar to her relationship with profanity— she used it because it scratched an itch for rebellion, not because she genuinely enjoyed it. 

The two of them had shared cans of beer together and the occasional fag (smoking made her sick, but she had tried several times anyway for the sake of her _I’m in control of my life_ kick). Sandor didn’t mind; he liked to sip from the can after her, or to press his lips to the paper where hers had been and try to figure what she tasted like. 

He should’ve gotten something that she liked from the bar, and maybe then he’d have easier chances of her cooling off, but he didn’t have enough money since he’d gone to the corner shop for the crisps and the Toblerone. As if booze was going to clear things up between them better than an apology for being an arse. 

_Bugger me_. Sandor took a long swig, turning to her full on. 

“Listen, Sansa,” he started, reaching for the flower in his trouser pocket. “I—”

“I’m going to go get some chips,” she said, standing up from her seat in her revealing tube top and skinny neon trousers. 

Sandor completely forgot what he was saying at the sight of her bare stomach, the descent from her narrow waist into full hips making his insides turn with want. _Breathe._ “Wait,” he could hear himself saying, quietly as he was, but she was already turning on her heel. 

_Fuck._ Sandor slumped forward onto the table, laying his head on his arm and promptly remembering that he’d spilled ale on the table as it seeped into the sleeve of his shirt. The table was otherwise sticky. 

He watched as she disappeared towards the bar counter. The bartender would probably recognise her as being underage and maybe they’d have to leave. Sandor would be perfectly keen on getting the hell out of here, it’s not like he’d been very enthusiastic about this stupid adventure anyway. 

Perhaps they could walk around the city for a while; sometimes she liked to hold his hand, and he could’ve gone for some human contact today. Or they could go back to her house and she could get more snacks for them to eat in her bed, and they could listen to music on her player. 

Sandor looked over at a table of young women at a table across the room from his. One of them had crimped yellow hair and another, tight black curls. There were a few others there, but they were backed against the wall and the darkness obscured them. 

The black-haired woman was wearing a dark, sparkling dress, and he could see the smooth dip between her shoulder blades, highlighted with a bright blue glimmer from a neon sign up above. Her eyelids were painted and glittery, and her smile was lovely and she was properly pretty and he looked away and forgot about her in an instant. There were thousands of girls in the city and still every time he saw any of them it was an automatic short-circuit to Sansa, changing whatever their features were into those of a straggly-haired girl with crystalline eyes and a heart that brought him to his knees. 

He ran his fingers absently over the cap on his head, remembering the most recent full moon and their tradition of sitting on the roof to look at the stars, her fingers as she pointed to them, notebook and pencil and flashlight spread out in her lap. She usually made Sandor hold the flashlight for her. 

His gaze passed over the stupid jumper of hers that rested on her tin chair. _Bad Lemon. As fucking if_ , he thought, shaking his head. 

Sandor rested his forehead on his arm, closing his eyes to the sour-smelling wooden table that didn’t sit evenly on the floor and trying not to mentally recite _Depeche Mode_ as he thought of her for the millionth time in the last five minutes. 

A tin fell on the table next to him and he sat up with a start. 

“Hiya,” said Sansa. 

The chips were sitting on parchment paper in the bowl. He could smell the salt and grease wafting off and it made his stomach feel all the emptier. 

She seemed in a better mood. 

_God_ , he was fucking hungry. “Can I have some of these?” he asked. 

“Go on,” Sansa waved. “Got them for you anyway.” 

Sandor pulled the chips closer, grabbing out four at once and stuffing them into his mouth. He washed them down with tangy ale and wiped his lips. The apology that he’d been formulating for her was nowhere to be found, and instead all he could do was offer an awkward smile and hope that she’d forget about how stupid he’d been. “Thank you for the chips.” And that. He could do that. 

Sansa gave him a small smile of her own. She reached across the table and scooped up his glass before he knew what was happening, taking a swift gulp and shaking her head at the taste. Obviously it wasn’t that bad, because she went sip after sip to drink the entire second half of his ale. 

Sandor couldn’t have taken his eyes off of her if his life depended on it, stuck someplace obscured between mesmerisation and horror. It made him uncomfortable when she did certain things that he _knew_ her parents wouldn’t like, yes, but he wasn’t immune to the secondhand excitement he experienced when he watched her have a good time. 

He cleared his throat. “Thirsty, are we?” 

“I’ll buy you another if you want one. But first,” she placed the glass back. “I want to dance. Come with me?” 

His face hardened. Sandor shot a glance at some of the people dancing, among them the black-haired woman, flailing their arms ridiculously, tapping their toes in spilled beer, leaning into the sweaty bodies of the people nearby them. “No fucking way.” 

“Well we’re at a pub,” she remarked. “What did you think was going to happen? There are people dancing, and you just want to sit here like a rock?” 

“That’s right.” 

“Don’t be such a square, Sandor. You always do this; you’re like, the enemy of fun!” 

He raised his brows. “The enemy of fun?” 

Sansa sighed. “If you don’t want to dance with me then I suppose I’m going alone.” Her purple-painted fingernails scratched along the surface of the basket before curling around a few chips and promptly stuffing them into her mouth. 

She began to walk away from their uneven table and he couldn’t bring himself to ask her to stay there with him. 

Her neon trousers and black tube top progressed quickly into a silhouette as she descended into the crowd of bodies, most of them inebriated. He tried to keep his eyes plastered onto her, holding onto her for security, but after a moment she became a speck of auburn over lime green, and then she disappeared. 

_Fucking hell._ Sandor brought his hand on the table. 

Nobody was going to care if she was of age before trying to shove their hand down her top. And she’d just had half a beer, to top it off! Granted she wasn’t _that_ much of a lightweight, but for all he knew she could’ve had a whole lager of her own at the bar top. She’d be served in an _instant_ by any bartender who thought he had a chance of getting a handjob, even if she did look underage.

His eyes wandered across the room to see a redheaded girl getting felt over the clothes by some blond wanker, a few empty glasses in front of them. He knew it couldn’t possibly be her because he’d just seen her go in the opposite direction, but that wasn’t the point. It _could’ve_ been her, dragged to the loo for a shag by some overage, too-strong cunt from whom she only expected kisses on the cheek because it was ‘blasphemy’ that guys would want anything else from her. He would’ve liked to think that she could tell them off if she wanted to, that those purple fingernails made for sharp talons, but she couldn’t even tell _schoolboys_ off on her own— and knowing that fact, he couldn’t sit still. 

His eyes passed over the yellow necktie and his heart stopped for a moment. 

_Fuck me_. Sandor stood up. He shoved a handful of chips into his mouth, the excess salt making his lips dry with no lager left to wash down with, and he began towards the middle of the room, shoving through a bunch of pissed idiots as he searched for a certain redheaded girl. 

It took a moment to process under the plethora of neon nothingness, the sea of people all around— but eventually his eyes fell on the top of her auburn head, bare arms and black excuse-for-a-shirt tube top underneath. 

Her back was to him, skinny waist curving into hips that made his head spin. There was a scrawny bloke trying to pull her closer to him, and... her with her hands on his chest. 

His stomach dropped. He’d said no to dancing so she’d found someone else to dance with, was that right? He let out a gentle breath, wondering why the fuck he was _here_ on his birthday and why the fuck she’d make him come here on his _birthday_ just to dance with other people on _his_ birthday!

Sandor moved closer to her, ready to chew her out for contributing to this horrible eve. 

It took a moment, as he squinted at their bodies, his blood properly _boiling_ under the skin, to discern that… they weren’t dancing, were they? She was trying to shove the brunet boy away— she wasn’t holding him— she was trying to swat him away. 

And he wasn’t letting her. 

He wasn’t fucking letting her go. God, he was just like fucking _Gregor_. 

Sandor’s heart quickened and all of the sudden he could only see red. All of the people, all of the neon colours— everything went utterly, unmistakably _red_. He pushed through, shortening the distance between him and his target with long strides and balled fists. 

“Could you... I’m not really... I’m... please! _Please_ let go!” she said, attempting to squirm from stubby fingers. 

Sandor’s pulse pounded in his head. Stepping forward, toes pushing quickly through the damp rips in his soles, he placed his hand on the offending bloke’s bicep, shoving him as a warning. 

“Did you fucking hear her, prick?” 

There was a dumbfounded look on his face, one mixed with… uncertainty. Nervous, but apparently not nervous enough to take his hands off of Sansa. 

He must’ve been a few years older than the both of them, but he wasn’t much taller than her and not nearly as tall as Sandor. “Piss off, mate, we’re just having a good time.” 

Sandor rooted to the ground. “She’s not having a very good time, is she? You’ll be having a much worse time in an infirmary bed, and that’s where I’ll put you if you don’t fucking let go of her.” 

The bloke’s hands tightened in anger around Sansa’s arms and Sandor could all but hear his own blood vessels bursting at the sight. He grabbed him by the chest of his shirt, trying to shake him away from her. 

“Alright, alright, fucking get off me, dick!” he finally let go of Sansa’s arms, swatting for freedom from Sandor’s grip to no avail. 

Sandor held him by the collar with one hand, raising the other with a balled fist at the end. 

“Don’t,” said Sansa, placing her much smaller hand on his arm, and he felt himself start on fire there, how he _ached_ for every single touch she gave him. She tilted her head a little. “Don’t,” she repeated, softer. 

Sandor changed glances back to the arsehole in front of him. He wanted to do it, he _really_ wanted to. And not just for her, although he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone getting away with hurting her unscathed. All he could see was _Gregor_. It would’ve been perfect catharsis, and he knew that from experience, but the soft look in Sansa’s eyes made his stomach ache, as though behaving with anything other than compassion towards this witless shithead would’ve been betrayal to their friendship. 

He ached to hit something all the more, and he wanted that something to be this perv’s face, in some half-baked illusion that beating the shit out of this stranger was going to cause some secondhand pain to the people he _really_ wanted to hurt. His fist moved a little closer and he took in a breath, but as the man in front of him squeezed his eyes shut he knew he wasn’t going to go through with it. 

Sandor let go of his collar, receiving a small smile from Sansa that made his chest start up again. This had been the right choice, the most practical anyway; suppose he were to have started a pub fight, he probably would’ve ended up with the black eye he’d weaseled out of a few hours ago, the two of them would’ve gotten kicked out, and he would’ve had to deal with her passive aggressive disappointment as well as his own. 

The scrawny bloke opened his eyes, peering at Sandor as though he were a rabid animal and his pounce was wild and unpredictable. 

“The fuck are you still standing here for?” said Sandor, waving across the space. “Get lost already.” 

He didn’t need to be told twice, taking a last look at the two of them and darting in the opposite direction. 

Sansa didn’t take her time either; as soon as Sandor turned back to her, she slipped her arms under his and pressed her cheek to his chest, consequently resulting in his mind going foggy, his insides melting into a hot puddle and spilling through him. 

“Thank you,” she said, twiddling her fingers together behind his back. “For not hurting him and for making him go away.” 

“S’alright,” he cleared his throat, nervous to wrap his arms around her because he wasn’t sure he would be able to let go afterwards. He wanted to give her the flower now, some measly attempt at a proposition for her promise, but he couldn’t make his hand go into his pocket. 

She didn’t hold on for very long anyway. A certain band that she adored began to sound through the DJ’s speakers and then she was ready to dance. 

“C’mon, Sandor, it’s _The Cure!_ ” 

“So it is,” he mumbled, concerned with how slow his heart rate had gone and how drowsy he’d become and hoping she didn’t have a sixth sense for that sort of thing. 

Her eyes were starry and her hair was frizzy on the sides. She smiled at him and it made him shudder, intensely more so when she weaved her hands into his. 

“Dance with me,” she said, already starting to do so with awkward hip and shoulder movements, turning her feet back and forth. 

“No.”

“ _Please_ dance with me.” 

Sandor groaned. “Fine, alright.” 

The look of pleasure on her face at his agreement made it well worth the annoyance that now he would have to actually _dance_. 

She slipped her other hand through his and his breath caught. 

“Like this,” said Sansa, wiggling her knees and swivelling her hips in different directions with a goofy smile on her face. 

Sandor glanced away for a moment, at high risk of zoning out on her hips again. “You look stupid. I’m not doing that.” 

“It’s _supposed_ to be stupid,” said Sansa, letting go of his hands again. “You’re supposed to have fun. Just stop thinking about it so much.” 

He stared at her, watching as she danced. She really did look ridiculous; they all did… but she was having fun. Everyone in this godforsaken pub was having genuine fun, except for him, and maybe that douchebag he’d nearly socked. 

Sandor sighed. _Fuck me_. He loosened his shoulders a little, wiggling his upper body something vaguely akin to what she had done with hers. 

Sansa bit her lip, eyes going a little wider. 

Sandor felt himself flush and he crossed his arms, going rigid again. “Fuck off.” 

He stared at her as she began to lip-sync to _The Cure_ , waving her arms out and shaking her hips a tad. 

Sansa held her thumb under her mouth like a microphone and began to lip-sync even more dramatically. He grimaced at her, standing tall and rigid, and she rolled her eyes. 

“Come here, numpty,” said Sansa, grabbing him by the shoulders and forcing him to move. 

He didn’t think his body was meant for dancing; there was no fluidity there, only stiff joints and hard motions. She, on the other hand, made it look _so_ easy: twisting her hips and shaking her arms and flipping her hair, all with footloose, _candid_ inhibition; feet twisting on the creaking wooden planks, shoulders swaying to the beat. Granted, she looked _really_ fucking stupid and he almost got secondhand embarrassment just from watching her— but she was having a really good fucking time with herself, and she didn’t _care_ how ridiculous she looked— and he didn’t even know how to do _that!_

His squeaky trainers clambered awkwardly when she pulled him towards her; he nearly toppled over her but he managed to hold himself upright, gripping her arms to steady himself. 

Sansa laughed at him— but there was such rapturous _light_ in it that he care at all like he usually did when she laughed at him. She grasped his clumsy, unpractised hands in hers, tugging carefully on one hand to pull that shoulder out, and then loosening, and then pulling the other hand and in turn the other shoulder. 

If he wasn’t experiencing an internal catastrophe at the physical contact he was receiving from her, Sandor would’ve wrung her neck for dragging him along like a puppet. But he couldn’t do anything other than stare at her neon-lit cheeks and glimmering eyes and wait helplessly for his lungs to deliver oxygen to his brain. 

She twirled herself under his arm and it had the opposite effect. The music was too loud all of the sudden, and the people were too close and the room was too hot. All of the movement around him whooshed by in a blurred wave of colour and the feathering of her fingers in his, the sway of her auburn hair and the flash of her big smile— they could only translate weakly into the loud sensation of his blood rushing to his feet. 

He felt again like he might wobble over. It didn’t help when she grabbed the yellow tie around his neck and gave it a tug. 

A pang of arousal flew through his chest at the motion. Sandor had seen a woman pulling a man by his necktie on the telly once, a while back. She’d pulled him down to her for a kiss, and Sandor could only watch wide-eyed at the fuzzy screen, helpless when the image faded and wishing it would come back, though he never saw it again; it was the only time he could remember thinking that wearing a necktie might not be so bad if that’s what you were in for. 

His hands dropped steadily on her hips and his mouth opened; lungs were too needy then for the passageways of his nose.

Sansa’s cheeks were bright again as she looked up at him. She held the outside of his arm with her other hand, the first still firmly placed on the tie.

“I’m sorry I asked you to wear this,” she said, tipping her head back for a small giggle, intoxicated, it seemed, on both substance and the chemicals released from good music and dancing. “I know you didn’t want to.”

“No shit,” Sandor mumbled; it was an automatic response by now, a default setting of sorts. Still he couldn’t help himself wondering _desperately_ if he could be in for a kiss like the bloke onscreen, staring down at the plump pink shape of her lips beneath her nose, cheeks flushed and blotching atop her sun-dusty skin— although the curtain of obscured red-black hair around her face made her skin look paler— like she was made of porcelain— even under the bright neon above their heads. 

Sansa’s expression softened and he watched her make herself smile before pressing her cheek to his chest again. 

God, he was so fucking _stupid_. 

Sandor let his arms fall limply to his sides. 

He was _so_ fucking _stupid_. 

The flower— he could give her a flower and maybe that would make some of this better. The flower. Only, he couldn’t move. His heart began to hammer in his chest as he anticipated her pulling back from him, and then she finally did— picking something carefully out of her back pocket. 

“Got something to show you,” said Sansa, presenting a narrow object between her thumb and forefinger.

The pub was dark, but the glowing neon signs that stuck out from every direction illuminated her object perfectly well. A sewing needle. 

Sandor stared at it for a moment, utterly wordless. Finally, “Going to sew the rest of your shirt back on?” 

Her face turned with playful disappointment. “No, you nitwit!— It’s for tattoos _obviously!_ ”

_Tattoos_. 

She stuffed her hand back into a neon green pocket and a small black container— half the size of a lip balm capsule— materialised in front of him. “And this is—”

“Ink.” 

Sansa nodded enthusiastically. 

He gaped at her. “Have you absolutely lost it? Do you really think your parents won’t notice if you come home _maimed?_ ” 

“Oh for God’s sake, Sandor— it’s not _maiming_ , it’s just some ink. And I really don’t care if my parents notice. Jon came home high as a kite two weeks ago and they hardly even gave him a lecture.” 

He thought getting baked for the night and permanent disfigurement were a little different, but he held his tongue on that front. 

“You’re barking mad,” he told her. 

“Maybe so,” Sansa wove the needle through her trousers again, which made him rather weary. “But I’m going to do it anyway. You want to come? You can do it for me— and I’ll give you one!” 

“Think I’ll pass on today’s showing of _Beer and Body Disfigurement_.” He didn’t need more scars, nor was he keen on bleeding in front of her. 

“It’s not _disfigurement!_ Cut it out, will you? It’ll be so much fun!” she said. “Haven’t you ever wanted a tattoo?” 

Sandor thought about it. An _Iron Maiden_ tattoo would be alright; a bloody skull with purple beams in the centers of black eye sockets. Yeah, he’d like that. “Sure,” he said, “I’ve thought about getting one before, but I just don’t think that right now—”

“WAIT,” said Sansa, her eyes bulging. She put her hands on his arms. “What if we gave each other best-friendship tattoos!” 

He sighed. _Brilliant_. A tattoo on his wrist for him to look at and think of her every time he saw it for the rest of his life, as if she didn’t come naturally enough to his head. 

Though Sandor couldn’t deny that there was some appeal to the idea. This would be something really special between them. It would be forever, and while he might have to look at his tattoo and think of her each time she saw it, the same would be true for her. Their memories would literally be engraved into each other’s skin, and there was something greatly compelling about that. 

He cleared his throat. “Best-friendship tattoos?” 

“Yeah,” she said, grabbing his hand with an intensely persuasive mischief in her eyes. “Come on.” 

***** 

Sandor spent about five minutes leaned against the sink countertop in the ladies’ toilet before he realised that _this_ is where she wanted them to do the tattoos. 

At first he’d thought that maybe she had to take a piss and she wanted him there for… moral support? Or something? He knew that lots of girls went into the loo together.

But she never even entered one of the partitions. She just spent an absurd amount of time individually washing all of her fingers and cleaning under her nails and down her wrists, and when she finally finished and took out the small black cartridge in her pocket and set it on the counter, he had the epiphany. 

Sandor stood up straight, realising. “Here?” he said. “Are you fucking _mad?_ You want to do it here in the ladies’ fucking _loo?_ ” 

“Well why not?” 

“Oh let’s see,” he looked down at himself. “Not a fucking woman, last time I checked. Not to mention that it’s _filthy—_ ” 

“It’s perfectly alright! For God’s sake, Sandor,” she rolled her eyes, moving a little quicker. “You’re always so miffed about everything! Why can’t you just have fun for _once?_ ” 

“Fun,” he said, snickering in disbelief. He could think of fifty things that would be more fun right now than getting tattooed in the ladies’ loo. His eyes briefly passed to the basket of tampons on the counter before turning back to her frizzy head. 

The glittery makeup on her eyes looked like shit, in a messy... enchanting sort of way. 

“Fucking _fine_ — alright,” said Sandor, “let’s have _fun_ then.” 

Her expression softened again, and she pulled the needle from the waistline of her trousers. 

He noticed there was a thread wound around the base of it before she began to clean the tip off with a paper towel dipped into a shot of vodka they’d gotten from the bar. Sandor was pretty sure the bartender had known he was underage that time, but he didn’t give them any trouble. Money was money, he supposed. No one was going to make them leave unless they started a problem. He wondered if getting tattooed in the women’s water closet was going to be a problem. 

“Which one of us is going first then?” Sandor asked, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

“Well where do you want yours to be?” 

He pointed to his wrist. 

Sansa nodded. “I’ll give you yours first.” 

They sat across from each other on top of the counter; him with his right side towards the mirror (he _wouldn’t_ be looking at the left for all that time, his scars brutalising him while she stabbed him with a needle for however long a fucking tattoo administration took), one leg crossed, the other dangling toward the floor. 

“I was thinking we could both give each other the infinity sign,” she spoke slowly and there was still that crimson flourish her cheeks, heat from the dancing and adrenaline and a sampling of inebriation from the shots of vodka they’d both taken before coming in here. 

The infinity sign. 

His heart raced _madly_ at her suggestion. “What for?” 

There was so much potential swimming in front of him, in the glow of her skin under the shitty water closet lighting, the blue stars in her eyes. Infinity! Forever! They’d be engraving _forever_ into each other. What was her reasoning for that? She could’ve said it any way and he would’ve loved her harder; that she loved him just as much and she’d fancied him since they were twelve, _too_ — that he looked absolutely smashing in that yellow fucking tie, that he was handsome under a baseball cap, or even that he looked ridiculous but she wanted him anyway— anything like that— any way she liked, and he would’ve loved her _harder_ for it. 

Sandor’s heart continued to hammer beneath his rib cage. He shifted his foot by the sink, head spinning with predictions at what sappy reason might be on her tongue. 

Sansa’s cheeks blotched impossibly redder, blue eyes standing out starkly against her pale, freckled skin, and she gulped. “Friends… forever?” 

_Friends forever_.

Just like that. 

There was a deep sigh waiting to wrench from his chest but he managed, painfully, to stifle it. “Right,” said Sandor, wondering how obvious it was that that had _not_ been what he’d wanted to hear. God, he almost laughed about it; he’d gotten so excited about the prospects of stupid childish infatuation that he’d began to stiffen under his own fucking trousers. Of course, her crystal lack of mutuality had been enough to resolve that issue. He stared at his fingers, feeling her hard stare on his face. 

A long moment went by where he wasn’t sure what else to say. What else was there to say? _Wish I had finished my wank instead of walking the way to your house for this? This is the worst birthday I’ve ever had, and my fucking mum died the day before one of them?_ Alright, that second part was a lie; his mum dying was _definitely_ the worst birthday. Difference was, he was too young to really remember his mum dying, or even her being sick at all— hell, he could hardly fucking remember _her_. The only remnants of that had been his dad and Gregor: the blame, the hostility that he was too young to understand, the beatings. _This_ , he was going to remember and it stung _hard_. 

For a moment he thought he was going to start crying— and wouldn’t that have been a nice show for her and not really fucking obvious at all. Ironically, he was too upset to say anything very snarky to her. Sure, he wanted to say some off-colour things to her to ensure that she was feeling as bad as he was, but if he did so, if he succeeded in hurting her, that would just make everything so fucking worse and then he’d be at complete risk of falling apart right here on the countertop. This wasn’t like her grabbing two knives out of the drawer when they needed two forks. This wasn’t a silly little accident she’d made that he felt like having a go at her just because it was fun to tease her. It wasn’t even like the tube top, where he’d become sour because he was upset. This was just… a sort of numbness. The sort that he felt after one of Gregor’s pummellings, what he felt as he lay on the floor, curled up into a ball with his knees up to his chest, bleeding on the ragged polypropylene carpet. Except without the blood. Yet. There was going to be blood when she pushed the needle in, wasn’t there?

“Sandor?” said Sansa gently. 

He glanced up at her. 

“Can I see your wrist?” 

Oh. He’d nearly forgotten that she was going to have to _touch_ him for this, and if it didn’t hurt so much to think about it would’ve been amusing to him that something like this could get so badly fucked. There were no words for her this time, only the smallest cathartic release of breath before he lifted his arm and gave her his hand over the soap dispenser. It was just as electric this time, as she cradled his knuckles with her pillowy palm, nimble fingers with purple-painted nails rubbing gently over the nerve endings— only this time it was a painful shock, not the one of tenderness and affection and _elation_ he’d grown accustomed to whenever she held his hand or touched his hair. 

She wet a towel under the faucet, leaning closer to lay the back of his hand over her knee before scrubbing the soapy paper at his inner wrist. And then a wash of vodka for double sanitisation. 

Sandor laid the side of his head against the mirror, watching as she placed her discards on the countertop. 

Her expression was very soft as she dipped her needle into the inkwell, raising it up to where she cradled the back of his hand. “This spot alright?” she gestured to the uppermost part, beneath the heel of his palm. 

Sandor mumbled his consent incoherently, and a moment later she pushed the needle tip in.

It didn’t hurt very much, when considering the internal torment he was suffering on top of it, and he was sure that if it were anywhere other than the inside of his wrist, it wouldn’t have felt like anything more than a series of fingernail scratches. She wasn’t taking the needle very deep, either; there wasn’t any blood to show for it, which surprised him. It was just a lot of poking and black ink, a collection of dots grasping onto the shape of infinity. 

There was a towel she used to wipe the excess ink off after each couple of pricks, and while she worked away at his skin, he watched the white paper turn black. 

She pulled his arm a little closer, making him tip forward to give her more access. The whole time she was so _unbothered_ , sitting there with her legs crossed, singing to the echoes of the music they heard coming through the cracks in the door from the main space. 

Sandor noticed that the symbol she was engraving into him wasn’t straight. He could see that she was doing her best, but she was clumsy, and she couldn’t get it even on both sides. It’s not like he cared very much about the quality of the tattoo anyway, but again there was something terribly charming about her inept script that made his heart ache harder. 

The area was red and a tad puffy by now, and it hurt the most there, as she was finishing it. 

The needle pushed in once more, twice, three times, _four_ — she stopped. Sansa placed the needle on the counter, sitting back to observe her work. 

“How does it feel?” she asked. 

Sandor rolled his wrist, catching the black mark from different ankles. “It’s a bit sore,” he said honestly. In his head, he dared her to ask how _he_ was feeling. 

She reached into her back pocket again and pulled out a small, square bandage. 

His eyes widened. “The fuck? Have you got half the fucking corner store in your back pocket? Where did you get all this shit?” 

Sansa’s cheeks went red, and he was sorely reminded of their earlier conversation. “I brought them, of course. The ink is Margaery’s. The needles are mine, and the bandages are from the chemist. Obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Sandor repeated. He put his wrist out for her again and she placed the bandage over it, smiling pridefully at it. “So we came all the way here just to tattoo ourselves in the fucking loo when you had this shit at your flat the whole time?” 

“Thought we’d have more fun here, and I knew you wouldn’t want to go out after we’d done the tattoos; too late for your taste, you _snore_.” 

She was right, he wouldn’t have, but not because it was too late out. 

“Whatever,” Sandor grumbled. 

“My turn now!” Sansa handed him the second needle from her trousers, shifting back against the wall and making room for him to come closer, it seemed. 

Sandor stared at her for a long moment, puzzled. Where the fuck did she want her tattoo to be that he had to be _that_ close? 

“Where’s it going to be then?” he asked. 

“Right here,” she said, patting the spot beneath her collar, just over the right breast. 

_Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fucking brilliant._ She must’ve had it out for him. Was she really so daft, or was it that she simply didn’t care?

“Right.” Sandor moved forward on the counter, crossing the sink, sitting behind her. 

He cleaned the needle in the shot glass of vodka, and when she pushed her frizzy auburn hair to her back, exposing the skin on an already _very_ exposed chest, he lifted the shot glass and tossed it back. 

Sandor shook his head. They’d gotten the stuff that smelled like the hospital. His throat burned but he tried to ignore it. 

Sansa gave him a lecture about how ‘he shouldn’t have drank that because they cleaned the needles in it!’ and ‘some of that was supposed to be to sanitise her skin!’ but he didn’t respond. 

Sandor rolled his eyes instead, dipping a paper towel into the shot glass and rubbing the leftover droplets on her skin to clean the area. A shiver ran down his spine as he pushed a few straggly hairs out of the way, laying his palm against her shoulder. 

_An infinity loop, yeah?_

He dipped the needle deep into the inkwell, letting the blackness devour the thread that wrapped tightly around the base. Next, he took a deep breath, making a conscious effort to focus on the sharp bite of the vodka so that he might be able to drown out how lovely she smelled, how soft her skin was, how close their faces were, and then he pushed the needle in. 

Just the tip— just the smallest pressure against the metal between blunt finger pads. 

“That alright?” 

“Yeah,” she said, and he thought it was a lie by her awkwardly composed countenance. “Just feels like a mosquito.” 

He grabbed a napkin from the holder to wipe off the excess ink as she had, and proceeded to build the design, carefully shoving the needle in, dot after dot, pulling it back out.

Sandor pushed the needle in a tad too far and she winced, to his horror— even more so when he pulled it back, and a small drop of blood formed at the surface. He swiped at it with the napkin. “Sorry.” 

“It’s alright.” 

It made him think that she’d had an alarming sense of self-control when she’d been tattooing his inner wrist; there was so much concentration when she’d pushed the needle into him, that she’d managed not to make him bleed in such a horribly delicate spot. Perhaps taking that second shot of vodka hadn’t been a very good idea. 

It could’ve been the dancing, the alcohol, or the shit lighting above them, but she was sweating; the smallest beads of perspiration rested on the corners of her skin. Oddly, it sort of made his head spin— he tried not to look at it too much or he was going to prick her too hard again.

A young woman came through the door just then, plain surprise on her face when she tried to identify whatever the fuck was going on in the unsuspecting loo. 

Sandor froze, an inky needle in one hand and the other pressed onto the side of Sansa’s shoulder, thumb an inch from her tit. As he sat in front of her, the both of them on the countertop with their sides pressed to the mirror, her chest in his face and him clearly doing something questionable to it, he wondered what this woman must’ve thought of them.

Sansa waved at the stranger. 

She obviously didn’t like what she saw. There was a look of panic on her face, which made sense, because there was a bloke in the ladies’ loo and a girl with him and she couldn’t see what he was doing to the girl, other than that his hand was nearly on her tit— but what did Sandor know, surely that couldn’t have been the reason she promptly rushed back out the door. 

Sandor and Sansa looked at each other’s faces when the door closed again, hers bright red and his obscured by black hair in all directions. 

Sansa’s lips spread into a smile and she giggled. “Did you see her face? God, I can’t imagine what she must’ve thought.” 

“She probably thought, ‘what the fuck is this nonce doing in the ladies’ toilet with a clearly underage girl?’ Or maybe, ‘what the fuck happened to his face?’” 

Sansa shook her head and he brought the needle back to her skin, shifting his knees. She smelled so fucking _good,_ he was going to get drunk off of just that. 

“No one would mistake you for a nonce,” she said, sounding more annoyed than kind at this point. “And stop brooding so much about your face. You think people care loads more than they actually do.” 

“Are you saying I make a show of myself?” 

“I’m saying no one cares what you have on your face except for you, and you should get over yourself so you can stop being so damn stiff everywhere you go.” 

Sandor stilled for a moment. Had she been thinking about this before? 

“That’s a pretty confident thing for you to say to someone who’s engraving something into you that’s going to be on your body for the rest of your life. Next thing you know you’ll have a fucking prick tattooed on your chest.”

“You wouldn’t,” said Sansa, and he noticed no change in her composure. “I trust you.” 

Whether it was her relaxed posture against his hand— the way she leaned languidly into his legs like they were comfortable cushions— or her saying that she trusted him, Sandor wasn’t sure, but it shut him right up. 

She was also correct; he wouldn’t have. To someone else, maybe, but it wasn’t like there was a plethora of people going around inviting him to tattoo them on the shoulder, so really she was his only shot and he wouldn’t have done it to her. 

Sandor pushed the inky needle in again, noticing that her skin was red and puffy as his had been. He swiped at the black residue, wiping a little blood away with it. The needle went in once more before the infinity loop closed. 

“It’s done,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Bandage?” 

“Wait,” she said, turning towards the mirror, “I want to see it first.” 

Sansa touched the puffy area next to it softly with her fingertips, assessing his work. He thought he did a well enough job, considering it was the first tattoo he’d given, but he wasn’t entirely sure if she shared that sentiment by the way that her expression softened as she looked at the ink. 

“Well?” he asked, tugging his hair over his scars as he angled further towards the mirror. “It’s shit, isn’t it?” 

“No,” Sansa shook her head. “It’s not— it’s…” she pushed her hair behind her ear, leaning in towards the mirror to observe her new ink. “It’s bitchin’! Don’t you think?” 

He glared at her, brows raised. “I think if you say bitchin’ again you’ll be walking back to your flat alone.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” No. No, he would never have left her to walk home from the pub alone, not dressed as she was with two and a half drinks in her system. But she knew that already.

She fished out the bandage for him and passed it along. 

Sandor ripped the packet open, pulling the soft patch out before throwing the discards in the vague direction of the bin. The paper peeled off easily, opening up to a tacky adhesive. He looked at the infinity loop once more, memorising it, before patting the bandage over it. 

Sansa adjusted her hair back to her liking, flipping frizzy locks over her chest. “It’s half ten,” she said. “Take me home?” 

*****

_Brass_ fucking _monkeys_ outside— that was the truth. 

It had rained again while they’d been in the pub; the streets were wet, and at each puddle, however deep or shallow, soaked into the holes in his soles and wet his socks through. 

And just when he had been starting to warm up in the pub! The alcohol had helped some with that, had made his blood run a bit hotter. And being around her. 

Sansa had her hand tucked into his elbow, her cheek against his upper arm. “You don’t think my parents will be too upset, do you?”

“They’ll throw a wobbly once they see it,” he said. 

He was surprised to see such disquiet on her lips, regret that made her eyes turn down under the streetlights. 

“I guess I’ll have to be careful about hiding it from them,” she said. 

Had he been right all along? Should he have been more insistent in refusing to come here tonight? They could’ve laid on her rug and played cribbage to shit disco on her record player, or gone to a diner for fish and chips, and she wouldn’t have been nearly felt up by some skinny prick, and neither one of them would’ve gone home half drunk and mutilated by her _stupid_ ink and needles.

“You wouldn’t have to be careful about hiding it from them if we’d just stayed home in the first place, like I wanted.” 

“It’ll all work out. I think it was a good night overall,” she said. 

“Bet you do.” 

“What,” Sansa laughed, “are you saying you didn’t have fun with me then?” 

“Less fun than I could’ve had suppose I stayed home.” 

She pulled her arm out of his and they slowed in the street, stopping to stare at each other in front of some wanker’s parked car. “That’s a load of rubbish.” 

“Think so?” 

Sansa raised her brows at him. 

“Right. I walked all the way to your flat in fucking _this_ ,” he gestured to the open air, not as effective now that it was hardly drizzling out, “just to spend half the night getting dragged along on your stupid rebellious adventures, nearly getting myself into scraps because you want to walk around with your tits out.”

”Not this again,” Sansa sighed.

“I mean, is that all I fucking am to you? Someone you think will hold your hand when you make rubbish decisions, like tattooing in a public fucking loo?”

“You’re an arse, you know that?” she shook her head. “I thought I was doing something _nice_ for you by getting you away from your prick dad and brother for the night— I made you a cake, dammit!— and you called me a slag and pouted for half the evening—”

“I never called you a fucking slag!” 

“That’s shit, Sandor, you know it is!” 

“I was going to apologise, you know, but then you rushed off to go dancing with other lonely bastards—”

“I wanted _you!_ ” Sansa yelled, and he saw some old woman peer through her study curtains at them. “I was waiting for _you_ to come dance with me, and you didn’t, so whose fault is that!” 

“Not fucking mine!” he said. “I didn’t even want to come out! I would’ve stayed in my fucking flat for the rest of the night! I wouldn’t have gotten kneed in the groin by fucking _Gregor_ , I wouldn’t have had to watch you get your fucking knickers wet dancing with other blokes, and I wouldn’t have mutilated myself,” he pulled the sleeves back on his wrist to show her the bandage, “all in the name of making you fucking happy!” 

“Don’t go trying to blame this on me! All I wanted was for you to have a good time on your birthday!”

Sandor stared at her blankly, features hard. He shouldn’t have said all that; half of it hadn’t even been true anyway, but every time he thought about what she’d said in the loo, his heart set on fire and he wanted to _scream_ at her for tugging him along like this, knowing somewhere very deep, somewhere he wasn’t nearly mature or selfless enough to admit, that it really wasn’t her fault that she didn’t feel the way he wanted her to. 

“You didn’t have to get a tattoo with me if you didn’t want to, you know,” she added, as though realising afterwards, and he caught that regret in her face again. 

“I did,” he said. “And I shouldn’t have said that about your parents anyway, I’m sure they’ll get over it. You know how much they love you,” it was true, but it was hard for him to spit out because of how fucking jealous he was of her. 

“Maybe so. But that’s not the point anymore. You didn’t have to do it with me— you didn’t even have to my flat if you didn’t want to.”

“Of course I fucking came.” 

“Why?” Sansa asked. “Why, if it was _that_ miserable for you? If hanging out with me is such a waste of time.” 

He frowned at her. “You’re not that bloody daft. I know you’re not.” 

“No?”

”No.” 

“Well what are you saying then?”

”Doesn’t matter that much, does it? No point in saying it anyway. You already fucking know— I _know_ you know— and,” he stopped, heart suddenly sinking under the weight of that awful moment before in the loo, making his chest tight. “I already know... how it is for you.”

“No you don’t.” 

_Friends forever._ “Yes I do.” 

Sansa rolled her eyes at him. “You’re really thick, you know.” A moment, he waited, whilst her posture softened and the stone-hard features of her face melted. “I,” she gave a small chuckle. “I made you a cake,” she smiled, and it was surreal to see her do so, so soon after their tiff.

”You make one every year,” he said.

“And this,” yanking softly at the yellow tie on his neck. “And _this_ ,” digging under the cream collar of her jumper and pointing to the bandage and what was underneath it. “You don’t think this means anything to me?” 

Sandor gaped at her. His heart was racing madly and he wasn’t sure how to stop it. “I thought,” he was breathless, “that it meant friends forever.” 

She nodded, a sympathetic half-smile on her lips. He thought it was patronising. 

“You’re really, _really_ thick,” said Sansa. 

It was true apparently. “Fuck off.” 

“No.” 

Her skin glowed under the orange streetlights, and she held herself over her cream jumper. If he’d brought a jacket, he would’ve given it to her in a heartbeat. Beams of neon light bounced off of her eyes, and her cheeks were still rosy from the pub— though he could tell she was sobered now.

A breath escaped him. “I shouldn’t have called you a slag earlier,” said Sandor. “I’m sorry about that.” 

“It’s alright. To be fair you look like you’re only five quid for a shag,” she pulled on the hem of his ratty secondhand t-shirt. “And there were a few things I shouldn’t have said either.” 

“Actually,” he swallowed, glancing quickly down the street, “you looked, em, very good.” 

Sansa raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Sorry,” Sandor squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head as he leaned down into her. “I know I’m fucking stupid. You’re... really... beautiful.” God, it was really fucking hard to say out loud. 

She didn’t say anything, but her features melted and she pushed forward, her trainers squeaking as she clashed into one of the glimmering street puddles, and she slipped her arms under his.

He wondered if she could hear his heart pounding; she was too short for him to have any chance at hearing hers. Maybe she could even feel it with her cheek pressed to his chest as it was. Sandor wrapped his fingers around her wrists and pushed her off. 

Sansa looked up at him with concern, and anxiety that even _he_ was able to recognise. 

“Sansa,” he said, looking down at her clunky figure, her neon trousers, shoes that didn’t match. Pulled his sleeve up again.“I want to know what this means for you,” he peeled back the bandage, gesturing to the infinity loop on his wrist. “Because I can tell you what it means to—”

“Oh cover that up, you bloody muppet! You’ll get an infection!” she pushed the bandage closed again. When it was done, she weaved her fingers through his, doing the same with the other hand. She leaned into him and his knuckles brushed against the fronts of her thighs. 

“Sansa,” he said again, more desperately this time. This was teetering on the edge of something he’d been yearning for since they were twelve. If it was mutual, if she wasn’t just having a go at him, he wanted to know— _now,_ not a moment later. 

“Sandor,” she said, her crystalline eyes delicate and careful, “I made you a cake.” It was absolutely _helpless_ the way she said it— like what she was saying she’d done had been the equivalent of writing it in the sky, like that’s how obvious her affection for him was when he hadn’t thought it was obvious at _all_. She pulled his wrist up in front of her chest, gesturing to the tattoo she’d carved into him. “Could you really have been that daft?” 

He leaned down into her, his backwards-baseball-cap-wearing forehead nearing closer to hers. “But you said _friends_ —“

“I love you.” 

For a moment he could only stare at her and, _g_ _od_ , there was such _concern_ in her features— such vulnerability, as though she had considered it a possibility that this wasn’t going to be mutual on his end. He wondered how stupid he looked. He thought he was going to cry. In fact, the only thing that kept him from crying was the tunnel-sighted path his eyes cast on her lips, distraction from what was going on beneath but he could feel the sting tugging at his eyes anyway. 

This, despite their being best friends since twelve, had never happened between them. He would never have told her he loved her and let her operate under the ridiculous assumption that it was an easy thing for him to say, that he loved her akin to the way one loved carrot cake, that it meant— that she meant— anything less to him than everything. As for her, she seemed to talk about loving everything and everyone except for him for the past handful of years (which now made a bit more sense when he thought about it), but never him. 

“Is it… do you feel… the same?” Sansa asked, and he snorted accidentally. “Because—”

Sandor almost laughed, only he literally could not for the life of him figure out how in the fucking hell the act of breathing occurred. 

“I love you,” he said, voice faltering, looking again into her crystalline eyes very seriously before moving his face an inch closer to reach her lips, timid and unsure of himself— but completely unable to resist the fact that he’d wanted this for _years_. 

Their noses rubbed together and his hair fell towards hers, and when her fingers came up to touch his cheeks, he shivered, and then he was really fucked because he couldn’t hold the tears back. He forced himself not to sputter on his sobs of relief, tears of elation and surprise and grief and everything under the sun was in his heart just then. 

Sansa held him tightly around the middle and he circled his arms together around her sides. Really he couldn’t tell if she was crying back or if they were his tears that stained her cheeks; probably the latter, she had so many other sources of love in her life that he couldn’t _imagine_ this being nearly as earth-shattering as it was for him. Her nose was soft against his, and her lips were so gentle. He couldn’t remember a moment that he’d ever been this euphoric— and the way the fucking night had started— even _crying_ wasn’t so bad. 

Sandor opened his eyes once they stopped, forcing himself not to smile because he knew he looked really stupid when he did (and especially crying on top of it! How stupid he would look crying _and_ smiling at once!)— but he couldn’t hold back completely; he was experiencing a previously unknown euphoria and his heart was only on his sleeve, spilling over, hanging by a thread. 

He pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear and went to her lips again, his movements awkward and clumsy with inexperience. She was clumsy, too, and he knew she’d never kissed anyone either, and that made him feel less embarrassed. 

She slipped her fingers back into his. 

He knew he looked like a fucking idiot, a common theme of the night and most nights prior, but none of it mattered now. Nothing matter now except for her in front of him; her smaller fingers woven through his, her cheek on his arm, the leftover flavours of vodka that tasted like sanitiser and salty tears and cherry lip gloss that she’d transferred with her kiss. 

“I want to hear it again,” she said, poking at his side before he swatted at her hand. 

“Sorry?” He knew exactly what she was talking about, he wasn’t _that_ far gone.

“You know,” she went a little quieter, “say you love me again.” 

“Oh that?” Sandor asked, chuckling. “Don’t think so. Kiss you again though, if you want to.” 

Sansa tugged on his yellow tie, stretching up on her toes to plant a very quick kiss on his mouth before settling back down on his arm, still watching him carefully. 

Oh _god_ , he wasn’t going to last the rest of the way back. 

“I love you,” Sandor said again, feeling dizzy. 

He glanced down to her to see that she had the goofiest fucking smile on her face. 

“Stay at my flat tonight,” Sansa said. “We can put you under the bed. My parents’ll never know.” 

“I’m not sleeping under your fucking bed.” He could probably be talked into it, honestly. 

“Why not?” she squeezed his fingers. “You’d be warm enough under my flower quilt!” her laughter made him _ache_. 

“Oh,” said Sandor, digging into his pocket, “reminds me that I’ve got something for you.” He pulled the flower from his trouser pocket and presented it to her. The plans for presentation during the previous events of the night had shifted so much from a casual gift to an apology to a plea for her affection, and now all of it was gone. No presentation, no ulterior motive— just an exchange: a flower, passed between their hands. 

Sansa looked happy at first, eyes bright under the orange streetlight as she looked upon her gift, but then her expression turned and she patted his arm disapprovingly. “Sandor! You took that from my mum’s garden! I told you to stop doing that!”

”I won’t do it again,” he said, and she gave him a look that reaffirmed she knew he was full of shit; he would probably do it again. 

The petals were crumpled and torn, softening with disintegration that he’d most certainly sped up in the heat of the night with the little life form in his pocket all the while, but she didn’t seem to mind; he pushed it into her sticky palms and she closed her fingers around the flower, locking it away under her protection. 

**_a/n_ **

**_putting these here because my links weren’t embedding in the actual a/n! not sure why but here you go!_ **

**_clown couple that gave me[goofy sansan inspo](https://www.instagram.com/p/CHf7v4qAR_q/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link) for this fic_ **

**_[playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/13HXlCkakD8UjmEvuRWjRz?si=9YEJo8anR_2dYsEFfWqG-A) for this fic!_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Really this fic is just me desperately trying to tell everyone how hard I stan the CURE and mutual pining. Idiots in love— and teenage Sandor who makes me *cry*. 
> 
> An artist that I also adore has an illustration of two clowns on a date and it kinda gave me soft SanSan inspiration for this au; it doesn’t help that their clown oc (Dinky) looks like a happy himbo (clown) version of my modern Sandor hc and the fucking clown he was on a date with has RED HAIR TO TOP IT OFF. The picture that I’m referring to is linked above! Couldn’t embed unfortunately?  
>    
> Corresponding playlist (linked above) filled with, you guessed it, 80s music! And a few songs that are not 80s songs that I just felt like adding lol. Feel free to check it out and thanks for reading :))


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